


Blow for Blow (For My Aching Heart)

by blesser



Series: Young Blood (Stand and Deliver) [2]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Inverted Jealousy, Mild Gore, Mild to Strong Feelings, Misunderstandings, Past Relationships, Strange Dynamics, Talking About Other People in Bed, Workplace Sex, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-08-08 00:23:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7735780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blesser/pseuds/blesser
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If an Earp was going to dole out handkerchiefs like favours to knights, it sure as shit wasn't Wynona.</p><p>***</p><p>  <em>Wynonna and Doc don't talk in a cave and a bar and a filing closet and then they do talk about other people in bed.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Blow for Blow (For My Aching Heart)

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Black Water by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros:  
>  _Spread your words on me_  
>  _Waste me with a bang, you know, for posterity_  
>  _Guns and steel and the germs of love_  
>  _Toe to toe, in the world of mud_  
>  _Blow for blow, for my aching heart_

_Skull as thick as a watermelon, heart as soft as an ear of corn._

That's what Curtis used to say, affectionately ruffling her hair and pointedly ignoring the glare from the mob, from Gus, the store owner, the principle, Nedley or the farmer with tire tracks scorched into his crop. What her uncle might say now Wynonna couldn't possibly say, would he still put a hand of unconditional forgiveness on her and wash it all away?

You have to be tough for this gig, she knows that, but is her heart still soft? She feels darker and dirtier every time she comes home, does the dishes, pulls the trigger, stares at the ceiling and wills the flickering flames imprinted on her eyelids to dissipate.

Her heart is getting as thick and scorched as the farmers corn after she ran wild on a stolen Ducati over it.

Uncle Curtis was right about the thick skull though, stubborn little Wynonna, always saying no.

Somehow she has toughened into something much less easy to sway, less compromising -a side effect apparently crushed into you by the weight of the world- and her thick skull, her whole _shell casing_ has hardened and evolved into something more substantial, bulletproof.

This is probably why it takes a few incidents for her to work it out.

*

The first time it happens is during the unplanned trip to Honeyhill Springs, a four hour detour taken to find a cursed amulet buried by some old smuggler enchanter on the border.

Apparently, Bobo likes to find new and dumb things to throw at them, like Scooby Doo hoops to jump through, cursed treasure and legend-has-it side quests. And he isn’t being fair or classy about it either, in fact, he set these mad, rabid, made-of-smoke dogs on the Homestead during breakfast.

What a creep.

Wynonna and Doc are tired and fractious with home a long way behind them and these incessant demon hounds hot on their heels.

Wynonna's actual heels scrape against rock and she whimpers, feels skin tear. She is scrambling forward on her belly in a cave she can't even sit, let alone stand up in, face full of snow and hands blindly scrabbling in icy water for a their cursed fucking amulet.

Doc is at the cave mouth, she can hear him letting off shots that echo like explosions and giving his own heroic commentary. The snarls and yowls of the dog things are only getting louder and closer.

Wynonna keeps searching, can't stop thinking about her exposed legs and ankles, imagining the jaws closing around them. Mercifully her numbed hands collide -hard- with metal, she swears -just as hard- and drags herself and the box out, shimmying backwards slowly towards where she hopes the light is.

Reaching a space wide enough to bend in, she swivels about in an ecstatic but stilted move. She can see the silhouette of Doc in the glare at the mouth of the cave, gun raised and hat tipped back on his head.

 _He looks like an aftershave commercial,_ Wynonna -who possibly has hyperthermia- thinks.

A dog rushes at Doc and now Wynonna can see that it isn't in fact a dog at all. She had only seen flashes of fur and teeth back at the Homestead over the edge of Peacemakers barrel and in the rear view of the Lincoln as they sped away. The Helldog looks more like a Hell... something else, with leathery wings and a long snout and more eyes than seems at all necessary.

Wynonna tries to get to a place where she can lift her ass off the floor enough to get Peacemaker out of its holster. The Hellthing is going for Doc's throat, rows of teeth and - _Jesus, two tongues?-_ gleaming and slobbering in the light.

Doc ducks like a weaving snake and brings the butt of his gun down against the Hellthing’s throat, it makes a too human choking noise and drops so he can pin it with his boot.

Wynonna wants to get the snappy line in herself which is an automatic response, and maybe a hero-flaw, at this point. But Doc, who can't see her in the darkness, lets out a long low whistle and says:

"Oh pal, wish you could see this one."

Then he tips his hat with his muzzle, the Hellthing writhing but pinned under his boot. Doc twirls the gun around his finger about seventy times before finishing off the snapping, slobbering beast with a flourish and a bang.

 _I can see it genius,_ Wynonna thinks crossly, _I am stuck three feet away in the damn cave if you bothered to look or you know, help._

But Doc isn't looking into the cave, is instead looking out into the trees, bent slightly and wiping black blood off of his boot with a rather frilly handkerchief. She can't see his face but his shoulders seem far too slumped for a guy who lives for the fight and just dispatched quality evil first class back to hell.

"Hey shoe-shiner," Wynonna yells, starting to feel actually a bit creeped out and trapped, "my boots could use some work too you know."

Doc squints into the dark, grinning and full well knowing she isn't even wearing any boots, he opens his mouth just in time to be cut off by an explosion from the tree line in the distance. What must be more than a dozen huge bat-like things erupt against the sky and start up a hissing, writhing convoy.

They are headed straight for the cave.

"What irritating timing," she tries to yell over the noise, "I had a perfect joke set up -spoiler- the punchline was 'while you're down there'. Ruined. Thanks Satan."

Wynonna struggles harder against the trappings of the rocks, gets another few feet out of the bend but still can't quite- The holster isn't moving, won't twist on her hip and she is out of this fight for sure.

Unless.

The box seems initially sealed shut but one, two heavy slams against the cave wall breaks it open and the glitzy, troublesome trinket tumbles out onto her thigh.

She is trapped and panicking, ok? So maybe her aim is a little off. Her numb fingers don't help either but luckily though she brought Doc Holliday along for the ride.

And Doc Holliday never misses.

He is turned away, gawping at the sky, stupid handkerchief in his right hand and gun held loosely in his left. Maybe he hears Wynonna scream his name over the sound of beating hell wings, maybe he sees the glint out of the corner of her eye, or maybe he really is just that good.

Doc takes the shot at the last second with his left arm awkwardly slung across his body, posture still tilted up and completely the wrong way.

The amulet explodes. Pieces fly outwards and then seem to get sucked back into themselves. The Hellbats start up this screeching and burning routine as they too start getting dragged into the imploding amulet. It is all very satisfying to watch.

 _The Amulet of Hellish Garbage Disposal,_ Wynonna affectionately names it.

They watch the whirlpool disappear in on itself, like an evil fireworks display. When it is done with the dramatics it gives a final pop then is gone from the earth, leaving the sky a blisteringly cold blue.

Finally Doc works his way deeper into the cave mouth and ducks to offer Wynonna a hand up, she grumbles, full well knowing she is going to have scratches on her bare legs for days.

When they get out into the open, blinking like moles in the light, Wynonna looks to Doc and immediately notices a line of blood from a scratch on his cheekbone. She plucks the messy handkerchief out of his grip and presses it to his face.

"Jeez, did that thing catch you?" She says unnecessarily, moving the cloth gingerly away only to see the blood well up again.

Doc hmm's distractedly, like it doesn't even matter, like he isn't bleeding through his fancy handkerchief.

"You think you can still shoot straight with one eye Brainiac?" Wynonna is surprised by the fire in her tone, and Doc must be too because he looks much more aware and suddenly quite amused.

"I've had worse, kid," He huffs a laugh, wincing as she definitely pushes just as hard as necessary, "ouch"

"Oh fine, sure, good ol' battle tested you," Wynonna raises her eyebrow, smiling crookedly, "but if that thing has scratched you and your about to turn into some creepy, hell beast with two tongues..." she shudders and considers for a beat, "I'd like to say I have _had_ worse, but honestly I will never be having sex with you again."

"Imagine it though," he leers, “there are so many possibilities there."

"That is so gross. Just for that I might never have sex with you again, just for that. Wow."

They start arguing, which then dissolves into arguing about where they put the car and then further debate about who is going to drive it home.

As usual, Wynonna is having so much fun bickering with Doc that she forgets the weird thing he said.

Eyes to the sky, mid-fight and shoulders slumped in defeat:

 _Oh pal,_ he had said with Wynonna not three feet away from him, _wish you could see this one_...

*

She finds the handkerchief almost a week later, stuffed into her coat pocket when she is doing laundry in the basement.

_Unidentifiable blood stain, pizza stain, ash from hell stain, whisky stain..._

As well as playing this amusing game, she has so far unearthed four dollars, five bobby pins and a throwing star in Waverly's pockets, so all round it hasn't been terrible.

The fine cotton feels like silk against Wynonna's fingers, which have been steadily wrinkling in the detergent for a good hour.

Confused, she tugs the filthy thing free, scattering lint and a stray bullet casing, and holds it up to the single bulb.

"Huh," she says part in remembrance and part in amusement.

Right there, in the corner next to a smudge of dark blackish marks and a sweep of red, are initials. They look hand stitched and original, careful, elaborate embroidery: W.E.

 _Must be Waverly's,_ Wynonna determines, dunking it into the basin with slightly more care than the rest of the laundry.

Waverly always did have an incline toward the romantic, a half-forgotten daisy chain in her braid, her all-in attitude to relationships, the well thumbed and stolen library copy of Northanger Abbey ever waiting by the tub.

 _Weirdo_.

Wynonna pegs it up, dripping soap suds everywhere and thumbing the mountain slope curvature of the W, the straight road of the E...

If an Earp was going to dole out handkerchiefs like favours to knights, it sure as shit wasn't Wynona.

*

"Well," a pause, "like what?"

Wynona groans unhappily.

"God I don't know, like anything?"

"Anything?" Doc has that lilt to his voice, like, _go on throw it, see if I can't hit it_.

"Not, oh my god, not _anything_ just something sensible."

"If it's sensible you want..."

Wynonna laughs, turning it high and breathy and winding up with a bitten lip and a held in moan. The rhythm changes sharply and she slaps her hand on the wall for balance.

"Appropriate," She manages.

"Appropriate?"

"Uh huh," she gasps, in response to both his question and the way he tangles his free hand in her hair which seems all over the place, in her mouth, her eyes, sticking to the back of her neck.

Doc ponders this for a bit, spends a long while -far too long- pulling on her hair while he drives his hips in counterpoint.

Wynonna is losing her mind.

Even more.

Her oversized shirt is slipping further off her shoulder. This exposes more skin which is immediately chased by Doc's hungry lips as he gets back to work, gets Wynonna pushed further against the wall with her forehead pressed against it.

Not that she is complaining, but he isn't doing much to make breathing easy for her.

She thinks this is going to be it, can feel the four cups of coffee from that morning and the adrenaline and the sex pounding in her bloodstream, he is finally going to say it all. It is obvious, right there in the way she is totally hemmed in and pinned down...

But then it is as if she never said anything, and honestly she wishes she hadn't, and they are back to where they were when the file room door first closed behind them, when they were a silently gasping clashing thing before Doc got her jeans shoved down her thighs and flipped her against the wall and she gasped out the words:

" _Talk to me, please, keep talking._ "

They had been fighting all morning, childish barbs hurled across the office after too long spent working in close proximity, in each other’s pockets chasing leads.

Apparently their relationship, or whatever, is not too mature or above fucking it out of their systems, but Wynonna didn't want them to stop now being themselves now. On the contrary, If this was couples therapy she needed the dialogue to keep on rolling on, scrappy and adoring.

Asking for things during sex shouldn't be embarrassing, Wynonna has about ten percent shame at this point, won't apologise for what she wants. But suddenly, with a hard body crushing her into the wall and the counterpoint of gentle touches to her bared shoulder and neck, she is suddenly afraid.

 _What if he starts reciting_ _poetry?_

_What if I laugh?_

_God, what if I like it?_

The only poetry Wynonna could quote right now is a jingle from a cereal commercial that's been stuck in her head for twelve straight hours, and that doesn't quite seem right for the occasion. It definitely doesn't match the tempo of her hips slamming into the wall so hard thumbtacks keep dislodging and raining onto their tangled up boots.

Maybe Doc couldn't think of anything but the cereal jingle either, because -unbelievably- he keeps his stupid mouth shut for once. He doesn't stop moving his lips on her skin though, keeping up a constantly infuriating dance of touching, breathing and panting open mouthed and just a couple of coherent syllables away from words against the back of her neck. He just is not actually _speaking_.

Wynonna sighs, irritated and puts her other hand on the wall, arches her back more and immediately wants to die.

It is perfect, way too much and yes, they are fucking pretty much dry in a file room closet, both expected to return any minute and with half a dozen officers on the other side of this thin wall. She is so turned on by it all and they are such a cliché but neither of them can find it in themselves to care one bit.

And Wynonna has pretty much been on edge and ready since Doc got his fingers in her with her jeans cutting into her legs and her body awkwardly jammed between a watercooler and a filing cabinet.

Honestly she hasn't really needed the drawn out, soundless, endless rocking and the rough-but-not-uncaring hands pushing at her, the silent and seemingly perfunctory nature of the sex is trapping her breath in her throat.

She feels awful about it, it is wonderful.

She is right _there_ , if he could just do as asked and keep-

"Really? Seriously?"

Wynonna is driven up onto her tip toes now with a smooth shove, kept upright by a claptrap filing cabinet from the 80's and his grip alone and if that isn't the hottest damn thing, she shoves her hand down between her body and the wall, desperate.

"Nothing?" She prompts hopefully, scrabbling to get her fingers where she needs them, the bones in her hand grinding against the wall uncomfortably, perfectly.

Doc scrapes teeth against her earlobe and it sends a jolt of numbness down the whole left side of her body, hand twitching and scrabbling against the wall.

Wynonna is gasping far too loudly for a fumble in a closet on work time, too loudly to not be heard and also too loudly to hear Doc whispering against her arched neck.

She tries to calm herself down, takes some drowning breaths and attempts not to wince at the too much too soon of it all. She is way too oversensitive, couldn't even tell if she had even come at this point honestly.

Her nails rake into the dry plaster and she spreads her legs as much as the restrictions of their tangled clothes will allow. At this movement, Doc groans, takes a second before picking up this incoherent litany against the soft part of her throat.

"Come on," Wynonna says, and then, "what?"

He is asking her something, asking her why? _Why?_

“What?” She repeats.

“Wynonna, Wy.”

You would think, with a nickname that sounds like a question, she would be used to it by now. But nobody really calls her that. Doc tends to stick to plain old Wynonna or some creatively ridiculous pet name.

" _Wy_."

When she asked him for more vocal sex she had expected a tighter grip and maybe some derogatory slash encouraging dialogue.

This doesn't  really feel like that.

He seems, a bit manic honestly, and Wynonna is so swept up in his urgency that she completely breaks apart and can’t even feel him let alone hear him for a good, perfect, floating minute.

When Wynonna used to have to keep a blank face for her parole officers or a cop, she used to run an exercise in her head to keep her focused enough to stay distracted. She would repeat a word over and over in her mind until her brain didn’t even recognise it anymore, until it could be just a sound or something completely different altogether.

_Thumbtack, thumbtack, thumbtack._

She has never had anybody say her name so much until it doesn’t really sound like it’s her name at all, let alone bite that name into the skin at the nape of her neck.

 

Wynonna listens to briefings all day, keeps Doc in her periphery and delights in the used, messy and dazed buzz she is riding. She is far too braindead to even consider that she might have missed something quite important.

*

A satisfying fry-up breakfast at one of the three amazing diners in town should never be immediately followed up by a technicolour, all moving, all bleeding show of dismemberment. This is one of Wynonna's more fervent rules, one that today Doc has decided to break. Wynonna can feel her stomach churning.

"It just seems a tad... extreme."

There are three bodies on the ground, another propped up at the bar with the rest of him spread all over the place and about a dozen bullet holes and knives stuck in the wall. The bodies aren't quite... bodies yet. Revenants seemingly can't do anything all the way, not even take a thorough disembowelling.

Wynonna carefully forces herself to look away from the guy trying to scoop up his unidentifiable organs with both hands.

"If by extreme, Dolls, you mean ‘fucking grim as hell warmed up’ then yeah, pretty extreme," she shudders.

Dolls frowns, predictably.

"What in the heck provoked this?" Waverly pipes up; she is trying to get past the entryway, which is just as far as Black Badge has been 'invited' into Shorty's.

Dolls looked as surprised as Wynonna could ever imagine him when he took the call from Bobo Del Rey, asking ‘nicely’ whether Black Badge could please _'come down and remove their mad dog gunslinger from his establishment, before things got truly nasty.’_

By the time they abandoned their plates -Wynonna carrying three pieces of toast and nearly crying at a dropped bacon rasher in the parking lot- things had most definitely gotten truly nasty.

Doc was but a dust cloud in the chaos, long gone.

Fingers to his temples in practiced frustration, but lip twitching like he is trying to hide a micro smile before it even crosses his mind, Dolls surveys the scene through the gaps in his fingers. He shrugs half-heartedly and spares the glaring, pride-wounded Bobo a long, unnerving look.

"Reel your boy in Earp, I mean it."

"My boy?" Wynonna scoffs, "nice. I like it."

"Yeah, very 50's love ballad Dolls, nice one," Waverly reaches up to pat him condescendingly on his arm, then uses her creepily strong grip to steer him off by the leather jacket, she looks a bit pale and seems pleased for an excuse to get out of there, away from the evidence of Doc's rage.

Wynonna turns back to the mess and watches numbly as another sluice of innards works its way down the bar, she has a momentary flash of a zombie waiting to catch it like a slung pint before the thought gets too real and she shakes herself back into sanity.

The guts drop to the floor with an almightily unappealing slap.

Wynonna takes in the carnage.

Then she tries to turn her eye inward and survey the damage there.

"Oh boy indeed," she whistles out long and low, "what in the world..."

The Gutless Wonder beckons her over with a crook of blood slicked fingers.

Wynonna doesn't move a muscle.

"I hear just fine, besides I had a big breakfast, would hate to ruin your chances at a top grade health inspection by hurling everywhere."

The Revenant misses the joke, but doesn't seem dissuaded.

"Y'hear the shouting all the way down from the other end of Main Street huh?" he says, like a true barman chatting shit to pass time. It is on the top twenty list of surreal experience in Wynonna's life

"Nah, Bobo was kind enough to send up a smoke signal, sorry I was too late to save your breakfast from hitting the floor."

"He was mighty furious, eyes like fire."

"Bobo?"

"No, no, Holliday. Oh man, we almost deserved it," he tips his head and laughs in a squelchy way that Wynonna tries not to think on too much.

"Why?"

"Oh you know Bobo, he can get right under the skin," he glances anxiously at the far booth but Bobo seems to be busy receiving the cartoon steak-on-the-eye method of treatment from a woman wearing, basically, a belt. The revenant lowers his voice anyway, "he was talkin' bout Holliday's obsession. Said he was a spineless dog, a lil' bitch runnin' and slobberin' around after you Earp's."

Wynonna smiles blandly, knowing full well that both herself and Doc are too thick skinned for that to do much damage. Let alone provoke such outrage.

"Get to the finale, Tubs. I need to go and wash my eyeballs ASAP."

"Oh see then," another mirthful, wet, wheeze, "Bobo says 'tell me Doc about how history repeats, are you fuckin' this one over too? Or just fuckin’ her?" And then well-" the revenant waves his hands over his insides, just to extenuate his very clear point.

Oh right, because Doc started off the week with a bloody, revenant bar brawl and picked a fight with the only piece of shit in town who could be a real problem, over a slur against Wynonna's _honour_?

He knows as well as she does that she doesn't give a damn about her bad reputation.

"I don't give a damn about my bad reputation," she tells the whole bar, loudly.

"Nice," Tubs raises a hastily poured shot which Wynonna really hopes he isn't going to try and drink...

"Oh woah. Vile," She gags.

"It is nice though, I guess," Tubs is saying, "A fella defending against all that besmirchment."

"I can handle _besmirchement_ , thank you very much."

Tubs laughs, pounds his hand on the mess of the bar in nasty delight like she just made a great joke.

"You are a funny gal, he was funny too you know? Real quick like but not as mean as you though." Tubs is slurring a lot and Wynonna really wants to be done looking at him.

"Doc?"

"No him. The other one."

"Bobo?"

"No... No, the other you."

"Oh, right," it clicks, "well some people get good bone structure and high IQ's passed down, we get funnier and meaner."

"I remember back in the day, it was always Earp and Holliday wherever you turned. Breakin’ hearts, savin’ the day, foiling all my sheep rustling plans,” Tubs sighs wistfully.

“Big fan huh?”

“Oh sure. I mean, big nemesis, obviously.”

"Obviously,” Wynonna is very finished here, “horrible to see you as always Bobo," she raises her hand in mock salute at where the grumbling, bleeding fur coat is hunched and defeated looking in a booth.

Paused with her foot ready to kick her way backwards into the light of the street Wynonna takes one more second to think about what happened here. It isn’t hard to imagine Doc getting riled up by the besmerchment of the Earp name, but she had rather expressly and –vigorously- made the point back in Honeyhill Springs that she wasn’t after his protection.

It is an odd reaction to say the least.

Odder still, she thinks about the weird handkerchief, the weird, wish you were here pal, thing and the weirdest of all sex thing. Like a beautiful three-point explanation montage it blooms outwards in her slow on the take brain.

"Son of a bitch!" She yells.

"Haven't I been abused enough today?" The fur coat whines.

"Shut your mouth Bobo," Wynonna yells, taking advantage of his self pity to swipe a handle of honey whisky, gross, from the bar on the way out.

"Thief!" Tubs -the towns upmost law abiding citizen to pass moral judgement- yells, "shame on you Earp."

_Yeah, yeah shame on the Earp’s, what else is new?_

*

They are on the bike in the barn.

Well Doc is on the bike, it is his really, technically. But it has belonged to Wynonna the second he just kind of showed up with it one day. It lives in the barn with Doc.

Waverly has feng shui-d the house but the barn is where Wynonna keeps her things.

It is well past dusk, too late and too dim for Wynonna to be doing such fine detailed work on the bike, she shuffles uselessly in the straw to get comfortable.

“Shift your leg,” she shoves at Doc, who is sat lounging on the bike reading a small print novel written by some dead American guy who is still younger than he is, “this is mechanical surgery, not book group.”

“How very un-multitasking of you,” Doc scoots back anyway, but it is useless, Wynonna can’t see a thing and her eyelids are heavy.

“Do you remember the first thing you ever said to me about Wyatt?” she says, wondering what on earth she is throwing onto the table.

"Would you believe me if I said I don't remember?” Doc turns a page slowly, nonchalantly.

“Sure I would,” Wynonna stands and wipes her oily hands on a rag, “memory loss has a direct correlation with old age.”

“Smartass, I don’t even remember what the first thing I said to you today was.”

Wynonna squints into middle distance.

“Um, no, pass, me neither we were still too drunk.”

Doc throws his book down, smiling almost cagily, and pulls Wynonna in by the belt loops. She swings herself smoothly onto the bike, can almost imagine the engine going underneath them and feels comforted by the cradle of it and Doc’s arms which come up on either side of her.

“Just because something is epically romantic doesn’t mean it won’t just fade in with the mundane. I mean… I don’t even recall,” his voice is soft and intimate against the shell of her ear, “what I said to get you into bed.”

“Bed, what bed?” Wynonna shivers against her will and masterfully redirects it to an eye roll, “epically romantic my ass. You just want me to say it.”

“Stage is yours, sweetheart.”

“You said I was exactly like you.”

“Right, well there’s your answer.”

“All of your answers are riddles, it is very exhausting.”

“Or highly entertaining, I respect your intelligence enough to know you can figure it out.”

“Huh, thanks," Wynonna scoffs, not really offended, "when we first met you said you assumed I was a prostitute.”

“An intelligent one. And very beautiful, with a lovely gun.”

“You also told me you were sweet on Wyatt Earp,” Wynonna brings the car around at last, “in a roundabout way.”

Doc goes quiet, somehow without even speaking which is something he has done more and more of recently.

It is, upsetting to say the least, like he is withdrawing back into the old photograph Wynonna has conjured him up out of so she grabs him automatically by the lapels of his coat, wrists twisting awkwardly to hold on.

"Did you ever?" she is ashamed of the blunt crudeness, the way it just spills out.

"Would you believe me,” Doc smiles wanly, “if I said I don't remember?"

"No," Wynonna says immediately, “not that.”

Doc looks confused.

“That is, different right? Different than us. That was really real, but come on Doc you and me? We were just finding a different and much more fun way of fighting right? But you can’t forget that, not-” she takes a fortifying breath to finish the thought, “he is the reason you’ve stuck around, really, you know you are doing it for him. Not for the witch or the curse or for me, not deep down. It’s ok, it’s all right.”

"There's a lot I don't remember Wynonna. And a lot more of it that is fuzzy at best, like a whole lifetime that has faded into a whisky haze."

"You aren't hungover though Doc, and _that_? That is the kind of shit that sticks with you. It has too, otherwise what is the point of caring that much?"

"Oh sure, I forget you always know what you are talking about don't you?" Wynonna wisely keels her mouth shut, "get back to me on every person from your past, every damn _liaison_ of yours after one century spent down a well."

"Love doesn't transcend one hundred years down a well? Shocking. All the pop songs lied to me," she turns on the seat, swivelling her leg over so she is essentially side saddle, half sitting in Doc's lap.

He looks down at her and she softens completely, ducks her chin to keep his shifty eye contact.

"I would believe that actually, god, there's been a few," she laughs and that immediately seems inappropriate, "but you know I wouldn't... care about it right?" She bites her lip, "unless, that's not- I mean that isn't what this is about?"

"Not what this is about?"

"Well, not _all_ that this is about, at least? I know there is a lot of residual... ness flying about here."

"Every forward step of ours is about the past huh?"

"Every damn second," she tips into his hold a little heavier, feet totally of the dirt floor of the barn, "The Past: for once, something I can't run away from."

“I would watch a girl like you run away again and again,”

“That sounded way less creepy in your head Doc,” Wynonna says.

“You know why?” he ignores her and, gosh, is he getting annoyingly good at that.

“The view of my ass?” she tilts her head back and bats her eyelashes; they must be brushing against his cheek because he turns his head up sharply.

“Classy. Nah, what we are doing here Wynonna is keeping pace, it’s not a chase. It is what people like you and me are good at, running away or standing our ground, there is no in between for us is there?”

“No,” Wynonna mumbles, she knows he is right, feels like the scrutinised book on the floor with its spine cracked open and pages peeled back.

A hand comes up on her jaw, fingers soft of the flushed skin of her cheek, her lower lip.

Doc tilts her head and kisses her soundly and deeply. She sighs and lets it happen, let’s herself be kissed for a long time, longer than usual. She puts her arms up around to link at the back of his neck, presses herself up into his chest and the bike definitely doesn’t wobble because it is good to her like that.

Doc is good to her too, she thinks, as he cradles her face in both hands, pushing back her hair and tracing her ears and throat with a soft touch that makes her shiver.

“You said,” she says between slower, sleepier kisses, “that was my answer."

"Hmm?"

"A minute ago, literally. What was my answer? And you don’t get points for showing your working out herebecause I am so ready for bed, so done with you, man.”

“Oh, what I said in the forest.”

“I’m exactly like you? I wasn’t really taking it as a compliment at the time, given the circumstances.”

Doc shrugs rakishly, mumbles something like _‘I wouldn’t’_ under his breath.

“Oh,” she puts her hands flat on his chest to force a hair of distance between them, and to feel the warmth through the thin shirt, imagine the strong, maybe sped up, heartbeat under that, “that’s it? That is why I don’t need to worry about you and- I mean, I’ve heard of daddy issues but please, Doc there isn’t room for great granddaddy issues in this set-up, Jesus! I get it, I am just like you? I’m not like Wyatt at all. You and I, we are the runners with a new reason to stick around and fight? Is that it?”

“Peas in a pod or something.”

Wynonna kisses the smile on his face, wishing they weren’t so precariously twisted up on a motorcycle, what a stupid place for a heart to heart.

And an even stupider place to make out.

“Just to set it straight, you are into me because of me right, not some hang up about my great grandfather?”

“Well,” Doc skirts the issue like he sidestepped the hellbeast in the cave and gently manoeuvres her until she has to slide off of his lap and the bike entirely or fall.

Her reflexes land her steady, stood between his legs with her arms still slung around his neck

“That and the view of your ass.”

“Well indeed,” Wynonna is pretty silently relieved, leans in with one hand on the leather of the seat and the other on a handle, every fibre of her body begging for sleep but wishing she could take this further.

Fingers always itching to rev the engine.

Doc smiles up at her, indulgently, sleepily.

“You could follow that view as I get myself in bed? I am thinking a good, long, hard sleep,” she grins, “might even let you join me too and if you are lucky I might even speak to you in the morning.”

“In my own bed? Have mercy.”

“Oh please, this is my barn, my land, my bed,” she takes his hand and tumbles them backwards the short distance to fall down onto the low camp-bed, “you are here by invitation.”

“Not yours though.”

“No,” Wynonna agrees, tries very hard to make her face and voice kind and gentle, “but I might keep you around, you seem pretty handy.”

Doc pulls Wynonna against his shoulder, and they look up at the twist of beams in the low light where the oil lamp is guttering and throwing up all sorts of the more harmless monsters on the side of the barn.

“He was a good judge of character, was old Wyatt,” Wynonna murmurs into the dark, “he sure knew how to pick a comrade.”

Doc lets out a breath, a soft thing with weight behind it, the kind that usually follows a gunshot or an I-love-you, the kind you can hold in for a hundred years in the dark. His voice sounds thick when he speaks, and Wynonna is very grateful she can’t see his face.

“And an heir.”

She tightens her grip in the comforter, takes a minute to process the compliment, the long awaited affirmation of her very self and purpose.

Wyatt Earp wasn’t anything to her, a curse and a high bar to jump over if anything.

He might have been everything to Doc, once upon a time, but this is just the two of them now, the runners and the fighters both quick to anger and hard to pin down without that particular hero to guide them.

“Are we done skirting around it now?” Wynonna whispers.

“If you like. Did we need to talk about it in bed?”

“We might need to talk about talking about it in bed, maybe.” Doc shifts, either simply restlessly or uncomfortably it is hard to tell.

“Seems fair,” He says, and then they are both remembering the same thing.

Wynonna doesn’t feel nearly as weirded out about it as she probably should do.

“Do you think you could maybe, tell me one of your stories?” reaching across the comforter, she finds his hand in the dark, links their fingers.

“What kind of story would you like?”

Wynonna thinks for a moment, till the lamp has fizzled out and it is just their mingled, even breathing and their hands held fast in the blackness keeping either of them pinned down.

“Tell me one where you saved the day for once, hero.”

Doc still has laughter in his voice when Wynonna feels herself being pulled away from wakefulness, his words seem slurred and honestly the story sounds like wonderful make-believe bullshit, but Doc sounds bordering on sincere and even maybe happy in places. Most importantly, it sounds like he can remember every last detail of the whole ridiculous escapade, right down the name of the horse.

Wynonna can’t see Doc, not even an outline in the dark, but she imagines if she could he wouldn’t look anything like an old black and white photograph anymore, not now with all the pride and belonging and remembrance spilling out with the tale.

 _Maybe_ , she thinks in the last muddled seconds of clarity before sleep takes her, _Wyatt Earp left more than just Peacemaker and a legacy to protect._

She tightens her fingers, knowing she would fight to the death to keep a hold on it all.

For Wyatt's memory, for the mission and for Doc. But mainly for herself.

Wynonna might be the Earp at the end of the story rather than the start, but she is sure planning on being the one to finish it.

**Author's Note:**

> [You can find me here on tumblr](http://margotvergerbloom.tumblr.com)


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